HOLIDAY DIY AND GIVING THANKS:

Hellooooo I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend!

Having a big Thanksgiving at our house has become a bit of a tradition with our family and friends over the last several years. And we are so grateful for that because we love having them! Fortunately my husband loves to cook and the rule is everything has to be from scratch, like the cranberry sauce. It took me a few years to get used to that because growing up the only cranberry sauce I knew was a jelly mountain with can lines. So he makes the cranberry sauce, apple sauce, creamed corn and garlic mashed potatoes and I make the stuffing, veggies dish, gravy and hors d'oeuvre, AKA my charcuterie board, (it's my fancy, schmancy thing). My mother-in- law makes rice pudding, my daughter makes a sweet potato dish, and everyone else takes care of dessert, wine and whatever else they want to make or bring. Oh and of course there's the turkeys, two of them, because we have our annual turkey cook off. This year it was a draw, his won for seasoning and mine won for moistness, and because everyone is so diplomatic ;)

Do you have Holiday expectations? Mine is that I'm that fabulous hostess, the one who flings open the door in her perfect outfit with a tray of drinks to greet guests with as they arrive and the turkey is already sitting on the table (whole) and miraculously stays hot, and gets sliced by magic, while everyone mingles and eats hors d'oeuvre.

I tried the drink thing once and had a tray of homemade hot apple cider that I put candy canes in but I put them in to soon and by the time everyone arrived they had melted. That was one extra sweet batch of cider.

As for my expectation of greeting my guests looking fabulous, reality was the Vikings game started at 9:30 AM so I greeted them in my pajamas.

Here's a few pictures from our table and this fast and easy holiday DIY for your napkins. All you need is twine and some sprigs of rosemary. We have rosemary growing along side our driveway and I had the twine so these cost me nothing to make. Hold the napkin up at the middle and just let it fall then scrunch it together, place the rosemary in the middle and wrap the twine, you can make the twine as thick or thin as you like, tie a bow, tuck the ends or just let it hang like mine. And that's it! Instant chic rustic napkin holders.

And every year as this four day weekend comes to an end our neighbors show off by having all their holiday decorations up. Really, cause I'm still putting away my pumpkins people!

Thank you all for continuing to come back and read my posts. Friends, family and those of you I only know virtually, it means so much to me that you are here! And to my fellow bloggers and instagram community, thank you for the continued daily inspiration. Your images and words from around the world encouraging me to see more, do more and be more. My heart is full with gratitude.